Glasses
by shadow djinni
Summary: Glass half full, glass half empty, Kurogane doesn't care. All he wants is to know who's drinking his root beer. Oneshot, set in Outo. T for some cussing.


**A/N: Writer's block sucks. Lucky for me, I heard a saying that prompted this one-shot: looking at the glass half full/half empty.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own TRC, or any affiliated characters/locations/situations. Or Pepsi.**

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Kurogane was glaring.

Not that this was unusual, as the ninja's face was set in a seemingly permanent scowl, but rather, the subject of his glare wasn't it's typical subject—Fai—but a glass of root beer filled halfway to the brim of the glass.

He knew he'd filled it the whole way up.

"Have you been drinking my soda?" he demanded, turning his glare on the person perched across the bar of the Cat's Eye Café from him. Fai glanced up from his Sudoku puzzle, his blue eyes gazing out curiously from under a veil of white blonde bangs.

"Hmm?" the mage asked.

"Have. You. Been. Drinking. My. Soda." the ninja repeated. Fai closed the puzzle book, sliding it and his pencil off to the side. The mage's head cocked to one side in confusion.

"Your soda? Why would I want to do something like that…Big Puppy?"

Kurogane growled in annoyance. Not only was Fai dancing around the question, the same way he danced around so many other things, but he _refused to stop with those damn nicknames._ They seemed to get more annoying, stupid, and varied the more worlds the foursome travelled. And Fai simply refused to call Kurogane by his name, no matter how nicely he asked…..or how violently.

"Well, the glass is half empty, isn't it? I know it was full when I sat down with it, but _someone_—" he shot Fai a meaningful look, "—has been drinking my soda. And you're the only other one in the room."

"Now why would I do something stupid like that?" Fai asked. "All that would accomplish would be getting Kuro-doggy to chase Fai-kitty, and Fai-kitty doesn't want to get stuck up a tree again. It's no fun, being up a tree all night." The mage ended this statement with his characteristic stupid smile—the one that made Kurogane want to wipe it off his face. With a fist. "Besides, I don't even like Pepsi."

"But this isn't Pepsi," Kurogane said, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "This is root beer."

"It is?" Fai asked. He _sounded_ innocent…but half of what came out of his mouth sounded innocent, and most of it wasn't. "I didn't know Kuro-woof liked root beer. Besides, the glass is still half full. You could have drunk it."

"The glass is not half full, mage. The glass is half-empty, because _someone drank half my root beer while I wasn't looking!_"

"Ooh, no matter what I say, Kuro-puppy is still going to want to do some chasing. How about I go get a stick for him?" Fai teased. Kurogane glared harder.

"I am _not_ a dog. But you're distracting me from the truth—YOU DRANK HALF MY ROOT BEER!" Fai's eyes widened.

"No I didn't!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Oh, thank you, Kuro-doggy! I knew you believed me!" Fai sprang up from his barstool and did an enthusiastic twirl. The black-haired ninja sat on his stool, confused as hell.

"Whaaaa?" Kurogane asked.

"Well," Fai said, "You just said I _didn't_ drink your soda, and I didn't, so you believe me! Kuro-chase is so smart!" Fai raced around the bar to pat Kurogane on the head. "Good puppy!"

It took Kurogane a minute to process exactly what had happened. Somehow, Fai had switched the argument so the mage was pointing to himself as the guilty party and Kurogane was insisting just as fiercely that Fai was innocent of drinking his soda. The instant he figured it out, Kurogane jumped to his feet, grabbed Souhi from where the blade was propped against the bar, and began chasing Fai. The mage giggled, squealed in delight, and fled from his enraged companion.

The chase somehow took them out of the café, down the street, back up the street, back down the street, into the park, and ended with Kurogane panting at the base of a sakura tree and glaring up at Fai, who sat on a branch halfway up. The ninja circled the tree a few times, looking for a way to go up himself but finding none. Eventually, Kurogane stomped back to the café, muttering swear words under his breath the whole time. Fai sprawled on his branch; chortling over the choice names he had been called.

"Glass half full, glass half empty—it doesn't matter to Kuro-puu. All he cares about is who drank his root beer." The mage laughed a while longer, before saying, "I'm sure glad he didn't catch me in the act—the results would have been catastrophic." And he pulled a bendy-straw from the pocket of his waiter's uniform and laughed a little more.

**A/N: So Fai is the culprit after all! I just love these two characters when they're driving each other crazy. They are just too funny. And, hey, drop me a review...it might cure my block.**


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